*Freezin...Kara Walker’s shadow puppet video, Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale, features in Art Basel’s digital film program, kicking off on Aug 12. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
You probably haven’t heard of it, but chances are you or someone you know is in the grips of solastalgia. It’s one of those neologisms that you didn’t realize you needed, and in a nutshell it is defined as emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. In 2015 British medical journal, The Lancet, listed solastalgia as a contributor to poor human well-being stemming from climate change.
Art Basel Film curator Filipa Ramos, describes solastalgia as the unease we inflict on ourselves as we build a nature-less world we don’t want to live in. The digital summer film program brings together eight short films, released 2011 onwards, that delve into this most modern of phenomena. In a new film each week, Solastalgia — Wild Tales focuses on a range of reasons our environment is transforming. The massive upheaval brought on by COVID-19 is probably the series’ inspiration.
Ramos considers each film worthy of viewing regardless of context, however, “I believe art has the capacity to raise a special kind of awareness and trigger real change. Hopefully, the, very thin, silver lining of the COVID-19 crisis is that more and more people realize how environmental decay, social inequality, and individual health are deeply interconnected.”
Climate change remains at the fore because of our collective mourning of the planet’s slow death, but more than simply ecological reflection, Ramos notes, “These films touch upon different aspects that mirror the complex situation we live in… by making visible the atrocious violence of western colonialism, considering how certain moments in history induced significant changes to how we live today.”
Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 5 is the creation of Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
The films by contemporary artists from around the globe are each a response to the increasing, unsettling otherness of the world around us. The range includes stray animals, historic figures and classic literature. Arts collectives DIS and SUPERFLEX, partners Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic, as well as Pauline Curnier Jardin, Kara Walker, Camille Henrot, Rachel Rose and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané present some of the most innovative and creative examinations of how the world is changing, for better or worse.
Among the highlights are Walker’s eerily current 2011 shadow puppet video, Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale. Walker’s work dissects race, gender, representation and slavery in America and could have been made last week were there not a copyright on it. Also notable is DIS’s A Good Crisis series, which explores economic power and privilege, and the rising demands for the dismantling of traditional wealth structures. Another highlight is Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic’s next installment of his ongoing series, investigating the connection between technology, nature, memory and spirituality in Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 5, which incorporates the Tham Luang cave rescue.
Admittedly most of the films in Wild Tales were designed for art galleries and complex installations, but Ramos is hopeful viewers will recognize them or their low-fi reproductions for what they are. “I find there is something unique about watching a film in your domestic environment that creates a very special relationship of closeness and intimacy,” she adds arguing the deliriousness, mysteriousness and ambivalence is “right there with you.”
If you watch
Solastalgia – Wild Tales
By Various directors
Curated by Filipa Ramos
Duration: Up to 50 minutes,
Dates: Aug 12 to Sept 23.
